Deb, Yasmin CT

Deb, Yasmin CT From Guizdal “Computational Thinking, Education for the Poor and Rich, and Dealing with Schools and Teachers As They Are: A Twitter Convo”

WHO GETS CT? Does that mean that poor kids will get state-standardized CT, while rich kids will get real CS with real programming that will give them the great economic benefit that programming skills provide?

This seems to involve questions about what it will mean to make CS into a school subject.  How is this any different from other “ersatz practices” endemic in schools?

WHY TEACH CT? Setting aside the definitions, Rafi Santos asked what our educational goal was with CT and CS. He offered three options: economic mobility (e.g., programming skills), a reshaped tech sector that has a better/different/diverse workforce, or a better educated citizenry. These are different outcomes that require different methods.

FROM Computational Mapping: An important set of skills in Computational Thinking we can define and test

What do we make of Resnick’s “computational fluency”? Mitchel Resnick tweeted that they use “computational fluency” to recognize the importance of students developing their voice and identity — “the importance of having the ability to create and express oneself with digital technologies”

• Mark Sherman said that his group at MIT is using the phrase “computational action” to think about how people can use computing to “take action on local, authentic problems, and make a difference.”

• Not in the convo but relevant is Yasmin’s Kafai’s argument to shift computational thinking to computational participation (see CACM piece here) which changes the focus to the social context and the interaction with others around use of computing. (Thanks to Ben Shapiro for pointing out the connection.)

Computational mapping. Computational mapping is about making an association between computational representations and objects in other domains. Computational mapping skills include using the computational representations to improve understanding of and predictions in the other domains. Computational mapping skills should also include recognizing the limitations of the computational representation, when the mapping is missing critical characteristics of the objects in the domain which limit our understanding and predictive capabilities.

—> So I basically feel like literacy, as framed by literacy educators, names this really well. 

CT is such a big and vague term that I’m not sure that it’s useful anymore. We’re better off coming up with new terms (like Mitchel and Mark are doing) for the exact skills we are aiming to teach. Let’s spend our time studying the things that we think are important and that we can actually define.

The central point I’d like to make is to counter the argument that “CT is too big and vague and doesn’t mean anything, so we should throw it away and use precise, measurable terms instead.” As computation gets closer to k-12 pedagogy, and we start asking computational pedagogy to be responsible for the practices and identities that are central to pedagogy in a developmental context, we will not have clear-cut, objectively measurable constructs. That’s just not what it is. 

I’d like to frame this in terms of how CT might be most useful. 

WE NEED TO COME TO SOME CONCLUSION ON WHAT CT IS AND HOW TO DEFINE IT. 

larger context CT what is it?     How people talk about it. 

What is missing from the discussion. The three dimensions.      Cultural, ethical, critical

GETTING CONCRETE

Missing pieces, perspectives, aspects

A format: What we are observing, an application, what